Ideology aside, I'm not so sure wether trust in the producers and consumers that much today.
If we had Henry Ford speaking to Congress, I'd agree, but we don't.
In many ways, today's CEOs are simply overpaid clerks.
They're basically interested in their salaries and their boni, if then corporate interest comes second, you have a good executive. If he thinks of the cooperation at all, you have an average one.
They're not corporal WW2 generals, but corporate 16th century condottiere (warlords).
On the other hand, leaving a multibillion dollar enterprise in the hands of one or serveral personal owners is not the solution either, a modern multinational corp. simply can't work this way.
With regards to the consumers, we can't trust them either.
First of all, a whole industry, the biggest industry in the US is PAID to cloud his judgement. Second, today's markets are so complicated that even without that much advertising, keeping abreast of the flood of information would be a full time job.
With regards to the auto industry, the logical thing would be "let 'em fail".
With state support, the state actually rewards the very same people who caused this mess and has zero guarantee that they won't screw up again.
A full scale nationalization would be an alternative, but I think not really feasible in the US.
Problem is, if you let the whole auto industry of america go down the drain, there's no one to step up in their place.
Without state support, not even foreign manufacturers would suddenly start to invest big scale in US production.
Auto industry in the US would just stop. From a libertarian standpoint, this is acceptable, the US big three screwed up and deserved it.
But from a national point of view, losing the most important part of your manufacturing industry is not acceptable.
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